Books Fatal to Their Authors Part 1

Books Fatal to Their Authors.

by P. H. Ditchfield.

PREFACE.

TO THE BOOK-LOVER.

_To record the woes of authors and to discourse_ de libris fatalibus _seems deliberately to court the displeasure of that fickle mistress who presides over the destinies of writers and their works. Fortune awaits the aspiring scribe with many wiles, and oft treats him sorely. If she enrich any, it is but to make them subject of her sport. If she raise others, it is but to pleasure herself with their ruins. What she adorned but yesterday is to-day her pastime, and if we now permit her to adorn and crown us, we must to-morrow suffer her to crush and tear us to pieces. To-day her sovereign power is limited: she can but let loose a host of angry critics upon us; she can but scoff at us, take away our literary reputation, and turn away the eyes of a public as fickle as herself from our pages. Surely that were hard enough! Can Fortune pluck a more galling dart from her quiver, and dip the point in more envenomed bitterness? Yes, those whose hard lot is here recorded have suffered more terrible wounds than these. They have lost liberty, and even life, on account of their works. The cherished offspring of their brains have, like unnatural children, turned against their parents, causing them to be put to death._

_Fools many of them--nay, it is surprising how many of this ill.u.s.trious family have peopled the world, and they can boast of many authors' names which figure on their genealogical tree--men who might have lived happy, contented, and useful lives were it not for their insane _cacoethes scribendi_. And hereby they show their folly. If only they had been content to write plain and ordinary commonplaces which every one believed, and which caused every honest fellow who had a grain of sense in his head to exclaim, "How true that is!" all would have been well.

But they must needs write something original, something different from other men's thoughts; and immediately the censors and critics began to spy out heresy, or laxity of morals, and the fools were dealt with according to their folly. There used to be special houses of correction in those days, mad-houses built upon an approved system, for the special treatment of cases of this kind; mediaeval dungeons, an occasional application of the rack, and other gentle instruments of torture of an inventive age, were wonderfully efficacious in curing a man of his folly. Nor was there any special limit to the time during which the treatment lasted. And in case of a dangerous fit of folly, there were always a few f.a.ggots ready, or a sharpened axe, to put a finishing stroke to other and more gentle remedies._

_One species of folly was especially effective in procuring the attention of the critics of the day, and that was satirical writing.

They could not tolerate that style--no, not for a moment; and many an author has had his cap and bells, aye, and the lining too, severed from the rest of his motley, simply because he would go and play with Satyrs instead of keeping company with plain and simple folk._

_Far separated from the crowd of fools, save only in their fate, were those who amid the mists of error saw the light of Truth, and strove to tell men of her graces and perfections. The vulgar crowd heeded not the message, and despised the messengers. They could see no difference between the philosopher's robe and the fool's motley, the Saint's glory and Satan's hoof. But with eager eyes and beating hearts the toilers after Truth worked on._

_"How many with sad faith have sought her?

How many with crossed hands have sighed for her?

How many with brave hearts fought for her, At life's dear peril wrought for her, So loved her that they died for her, Tasting the raptured fleetness Of her Divine completeness?"_

_In honour of these scholars of an elder age, little understood by their fellows, who caused them to suffer for the sake of the Truth they loved, we doff our caps, whether they jingle or not, as you please; and if thou thinkest, good reader, that 'twere folly to lose a life for such a cause, the bells will match the rest of thy garb. The learning, too, of the censors and critics was often indeed remarkable. They condemned a recondite treatise on Trigonometry, because they imagined it contained heretical opinions concerning the doctrine of the Trinity; and another work which was devoted to the study of Insects was prohibited, because they concluded that it was a secret attack upon the Jesuits. Well might poor Galileo exclaim, "And are these then my judges?" Stossius, who wrote a goodly book with the t.i.tle "Concordia rationis et fidei,"

which was duly honoured by being burnt at Berlin, thus addresses his slaughtered offspring, and speculates on the reason of its condemnation: "Ad librum a ministerio d.a.m.natum._

_"Q. Parve liber, quid enim peccasti, dente sinistro. Quod te discerptum turba sacrata velit? R. Invisum dixi verum, propter quod et olim, Vel dominum letho turba sacrata dedit."_

_But think not, O Book-lover, that I am about to record all the race of fools who have made themselves uncomfortable through their insane love of writing, nor count all the books which have become instruments of accusation against their authors. That library would be a large one which contained all such volumes. I may only write to thee of some of them now, and if thou shouldest require more, some other time I may tell thee of them. Perhaps in a corner of thy book-shelves thou wilt collect a store of Fatal Books, many of which are rare and hard to find. Know, too, that I have derived some of the t.i.tles of works herein recorded from a singular and rare work of M. John Christia.n.u.s Klotz, published in Latin at Leipsic, in the year 1751. To these I have added many others.

The Biographical Dictionary of Bayle is a mine from which I have often quarried, and discovered there many rare treasures. Our own learned literary historian, Mr. Isaac Disraeli, has recorded the woes of many of our English writers in his book ent.i.tled "The Calamities of Authors" and also in his "Curiosities of Literature." From these works I have derived some information. There is a work by Menkenius, "a.n.a.lecta de Calamitate Literatorum"; another by Pierius Valeria.n.u.s, "De Infelicitate Literatorum"; another by Spizelius, "Infelix Literatus"; and last but not least Peignot's "Dictionnaire Critique, Litteraire et Bibliographique, des Livres cond.a.m.nes au Feu" which will furnish thee with further information concerning the woes of authors, if thine appet.i.te be not already sated._

_And if there be any of Folly's crowd who read this book--of those, I mean, who work and toil by light of midnight lamp, weaving from their brains page upon page of lore and learning, wearing their lives out, all for the sake of an ungrateful public, which cares little for their labour and scarcely stops to thank the toiler for his pains--if there be any of you who read these pages, it will be as pleasant to you to feel safe and free from the stern critics' modes of former days, as it is to watch the storms and tempests of the sea from the secure retreat of your study chair._

_And if at any time a cross-grained reviewer should treat thy cherished book with scorn, and presume to ridicule thy sentiment and scoff at thy style (which Heaven forfend!), console thyself that thou livest in peaceable and enlightened times, and needest fear that no greater evil can befall thee on account of thy folly in writing than the lash of his satire and the bitterness of his caustic pen. After the manner of thy race thou wilt tempt Fortune again. May'st thou proceed and prosper!_ Vale.

_I desire to express my many thanks to the Rev. Arthur Carr, M.A., late Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, for his kind a.s.sistance in revising the proofs of this work. It was my intention to dedicate this book to Mr.

John Walter, but alas! his death has deprived it of that distinction.

It is only possible now to inscribe to the memory of him whom England mourns the results of some literary labour in which he was pleased to take a kindly interest._

P. H. D.

BARKHAM RECTORY,

_November_, 1894.

BOOKS FATAL TO THEIR AUTHORS.

CHAPTER I. THEOLOGY.

Michael Molinos--Bartholomew Carranza--Jerome Wecchiettus--Samuel Clarke--Francis David--Antonio de Dominis--Noel Bede--William Tyndale--Arias Monta.n.u.s--John Huss--Antonio Bruccioli--Enzinas--Louis Le Maistre--Gaspar Peucer--Grotius--Vorstius--Pasquier Quesnel--Le Courayer--Savonarola--Michael Servetus--Sebastian Edzardt--William of Ockham--Abelard.

Since the knowledge of Truth is the sovereign good of human nature, it is natural that in every age she should have many seekers, and those who ventured in quest of her in the dark days of ignorance and superst.i.tion amidst the mists and tempests of the sixteenth century often ran counter to the opinions of dominant parties, and fell into the hands of foes who knew no pity. Inasmuch as Theology and Religion are the highest of all studies--the _aroma scientiarum_--they have attracted the most powerful minds and the subtlest intellects to their elucidation; no other subjects have excited men's minds and aroused their pa.s.sions as these have done; on account of their unspeakable importance, no other subjects have kindled such heat and strife, or proved themselves more fatal to many of the authors who wrote concerning them. In an evil hour persecutions were resorted to to force consciences, Roman Catholics burning and torturing Protestants, and the latter retaliating and using the same weapons; surely this was, as Bacon wrote, "to bring down the Holy Ghost, instead of the likeness of a dove, in the shape of a vulture or raven; and to set, out of the bark of a Christian Church, a flag of a bark of pirates and a.s.sa.s.sins."

The historian then will not be surprised to find that by far the larger number of Fatal Books deal with these subjects of Theology and Religion, and many of them belong to the stormy period of the Reformation. They met with severe critics in the merciless Inquisition, and sad was the fate of a luckless author who found himself opposed to the opinions of that dread tribunal. There was no appeal from its decisions, and if a taint of heresy, or of what it was pleased to call heresy, was detected in any book, the doom of its author was sealed, and the ingenuity of the age was well-nigh exhausted in devising methods for administering the largest amount of torture before death ended his woes.

_Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum._

Liberty of conscience was a thing unknown in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; and while we prize that liberty as a priceless possession, we can but admire the constancy and courage of those who lived in less happy days. We are not concerned now in condemning or defending their opinions or their beliefs, but we may at least praise their boldness and mourn their fate.

The first author we record whose works proved fatal to him was Michael Molinos, a Spanish theologian born in 1627, a pious and devout man who resided at Rome and acted as confessor. He published in 1675 _The Spiritual Manual_, which was translated from Italian into Latin, and together with a treatise on _The Daily Communion_ was printed with this t.i.tle: _A Spiritual Manual, releasing the soul and leading it along the interior way to the acquiring the perfection of contemplation and the rich treasure of internal peace_. In the preface Molinos writes: "Mystical theology is not a science of the imagination, but of feelings; we do not understand it by study, but we receive it from heaven.

Therefore in this little work I have received far greater a.s.sistance from the infinite goodness of G.o.d, who has deigned to inspire me, than from the thoughts which the reading of books has suggested to me." The object of the work is to teach that the pious mind must possess quietude in order to attain to any spiritual progress, and that for this purpose it must be abstracted from visible objects and thus rendered susceptible of heavenly influence. This work received the approval of the Archbishop of the kingdom of Calabria, and many other theologians of the Church.

It won for its author the favour of Cardinal Estraeus and also of Pope Innocent XI. It was examined by the Inquisition at the instigation of the Jesuits, and pa.s.sed that trying ordeal unscathed. But the book raised up many powerful adversaries against its author, who did not scruple to charge Molinos with Judaism, Mohammedanism, and many other "isms," but without any avail, until at length they approached the confessor of the King of Naples, and obtained an order addressed to Cardinal Estraeus for the further examination of the book. The Cardinal preferred the favour of the king to his private friendship. Molinos was tried in 1685, and two years later was conducted in his priestly robes to the temple of Minerva, where he was bound, and holding in his hand a wax taper was compelled to renounce sixty-eight articles which the Inquisition decreed were deduced from his book. He was afterwards doomed to perpetual imprisonment. On his way to the prison he encountered one of his opponents and exclaimed, "Farewell, my father; we shall meet again on the day of judgment, and then it will be manifest on which side, on yours or mine, the Truth shall stand." For eleven long years Molinos languished in the dungeons of the Inquisition, where he died in 1696. His work was translated into French and appeared in a _Recueil de pieces sur le Quietisme_, published in Amsterdam 1688. Molinos has been considered the leader and founder of the Quietism of the seventeenth century. The monks of Mount Athos in the fourteenth, the Molinosists, Madame Guyon, Fenelon, and others in the seventeenth century, all belonged to that contemplative company of Christians who thought that the highest state of perfection consisted in the repose and complete inaction of the soul, that life ought to be one of entire pa.s.sive contemplation, and that good works and active industry were only fitting for those who were toiling in a lower sphere and had not attained to the higher regions of spiritual mysticism. Thus the '[Greek: Aesuchastai]'

on Mount Athos contemplated their nose or their navel, and called the effect of their meditations "the divine light," and Molinos pined in his dungeon, and left his works to be castigated by the renowned Bossuet.

The pious, devout, and learned Spanish divine was worthy of a better fate, and perhaps a little more quietism and a little less restlessness would not be amiss in our busy nineteenth century.

The n.o.blest prey ever captured by those keen hunters, the Inquisitors, was Bartholomew Carranza, Archbishop of Toledo, in 1558, one of the richest and most powerful prelates in Christendom. He enjoyed the favour of his sovereign Philip II. of Spain, whom he accompanied to England, and helped to burn our English Protestants. Unfortunately in an evil hour he turned to authorship, and published a catechism under this t.i.tle: _Commentarios sobre el Catequismo Cristiano divididos en quatro partes las quales contienen fodo loque professamor en el sancto baptismo, como se vera en la plana seguiente dirigidos al serenissimo Roy de Espana_ (Antwerp). On account of this work he was accused of Lutheranism, and his capture arranged by his enemies. At midnight, after the Archbishop had retired to rest, a knock was heard at the door of the chamber. "Who calls?" asked the attendant friar. "Open to the Holy Office," was the answer. Immediately the door flew open, for none dared resist that terrible summons, and Ramirez, the Inquisitor-General of Toledo, entered. The Archbishop raised himself in his bed, and demanded the reason of the intrusion. An order for his arrest was produced, and he was speedily conveyed to the dungeons of the Inquisition at Valladolid. For seven long years he lingered there, and was then summoned to Rome in 1566 by Pius V. and imprisoned for six years in the Castle of St. Angelo. The successor of Pope Pius V., Gregory XIII., at length p.r.o.nounced him guilty of false doctrine. His catechism was condemned; he was compelled to abjure sixteen propositions, and besides other penances he was confined for five years in a monastery. Broken down by his eighteen years' imprisonment and by the hardships he had undergone, he died sixteen days after his cruel sentence had been p.r.o.nounced. [Footnote: Cf. _The Church of Spain_, by Canon Meyrick.

(National Churches Series.)] On his deathbed he solemnly declared that he had never seriously offended with regard to the Faith. The people were very indignant against his persecutors, and on the day of his funeral all the shops were closed as on a great festival. His body was honoured as that of a saint. His captors doubtless regretted his death, inasmuch as the Pope is said to have received a thousand gold pieces each month for sparing his life, and Philip appropriated the revenues of his see for his own charitable purposes, which happened at that time to be suppression of heresy in the Netherlands by the usual means of rack and fire and burying alive helpless victims.

A very fatal book was one ent.i.tled _Opus de anno primitivo ab exordia mundi, ad annum Julianum accommodato, et de sacrorum temporum ratione.

Augustae-Vindelicorum_, 1621, _in folio magno_. It is a work of Jerome Wecchiettus, a Florentine doctor of theology. The Inquisition attacked and condemned the book to the flames, and its author to perpetual imprisonment. Being absent from Rome he was comparatively safe, but surprised the whole world by voluntarily submitting himself to his persecutors, and surrendering himself to prison. This extraordinary humility disarmed his foes, but it did not soften much the hearts of the Inquisitors, who permitted him to end his days in the cell. The causes of the condemnation of the work are not very evident. One idea is that in his work the author pretended to prove that Christ did not eat the pa.s.sover during the last year of His life; and another states that he did not sufficiently honour the memory of Louis of Bavaria, and thus aroused the anger of the strong supporters of that ancient house.

The first English author whose woes we record is Samuel Clarke, who was born at Norwich in 1675, and was for some time chaplain to the bishop of that see. He was very intimate with the scientific men of his time, and especially with Newton. In 1704 he published his Boyle Lectures, _A Treatise on the Being and Attributes of G.o.d, and on Natural and Revealed Religion_, which found its way into other lands, a translation being published in Amsterdam in 1721. Our author became chaplain to Queen Anne and Rector of St. James's. He was a profoundly learned and devout student, and obtained a European renown as a true Christian philosopher.

In controversy he encountered foemen worthy of his steel, such as Spinosa, Hobbes, Dodwell, Collins, Leibnitz, and others. But in 1712 he published _The Scriptural Doctrine of the Trinity_, which was declared to be opposed to the Christian belief and tainted with Arianism. The attention of Parliament was called to the book; the arguments were disputed by Edward Wells, John Edwards, and William Sommer; and Clarke was deprived of his offices. The charge of heterodoxy was certainly never proved against him; he did good service in trying to stem the flood of rationalism prevalent in his time, and his work was carried on by Bishop Butler. His correspondence with Leibnitz on Time, s.p.a.ce, Necessity, and Liberty was published in 1717, and his editions of Caesar and Homer were no mean contributions to the study of cla.s.sical literature.

In the sixteenth century there lived in Hungary one Francis David, a man learned in the arts and languages, but his inconstancy and fickleness of mind led him into diverse errors, and brought about his destruction.

He left the Church, and first embraced Calvinism; then he fled into the camp of the Semi-Judaising party, publishing a book _De Christo non invocando_, which was answered by Faustus Socinus, the founder of Socinianism. The Prince of Transylvania, Christopher Bathori, condemned David as an impious innovator and preacher of strange doctrines, and cast him into prison, where he died in 1579. There is extant a letter of David to the Churches of Poland concerning the millennium of Christ.

Our next author was a victim to the same inconstancy of mind which proved so fatal to Francis David, but sordid reasons and the love of gain without doubt influenced his conduct and produced his fickleness of faith. Antonio de Dominis, Archbishop of Spalatro, was a shining light of the Roman Church at the end of the sixteenth century. He was born in 1566, and educated by the Jesuits. He was learned in history and in science, and was the first to discover the cause of the rainbow, his explanation being adopted and perfected by Descartes. The Jesuits obtained for him the Professorship of Mathematics at Padua, and of Logic and Rhetoric at Brescia. After his ordination he became a popular preacher and was consecrated Bishop of Segni, and afterwards Archbishop of Spalatro in Dalmatia. He took a leading part in the controversy between the Republic of Venice and the Pope, and after the reconciliation between the two parties was obliged by the Pope to pay an annual pension of five hundred crowns out of the revenues of his see to the Bishop of Segni. This highly incensed the avaricious prelate, who immediately began to look out for himself a more lucrative piece of preferment. He applied to Sir Dudley Carleton, the English Amba.s.sador at Venice, to know whether he would be received into the Church of England, as the abuses and corruptions of the Church of Rome prevented him from remaining any longer in her communion.

King James I. heartily approved of his proposal, and gave him a most honourable reception, both in the Universities and at Court. All the English bishops agreed to contribute towards his maintenance. Fuller says: "It is incredible what flocking of people there was to behold this old archbishop now a new convert; prelates and peers presented him with gifts of high valuation." Other writers of the period describe him as "old and corpulent," but of a "comely presence"; irascible and pretentious, gifted with an unlimited a.s.surance and plenty of ready wit in writing and speaking; of a "jeering temper," and of a most grasping avarice. He was ridiculed on the stage in Middleton's play, _The Game of Chess_, as the "Fat Bishop." "He was well named De Dominis in the plural," says Crakanthorp, "for he could serve two masters, or twenty, if they paid him wages."

Our author now proceeded to finish his great work, which he published in 1617 in three large folios--_De Republica Ecclesiastica_, of which the original still exists among the Tanner MSS. in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. "He exclaims," says Fuller, "'in reading, meditation, and writing, I am almost pined away,' but his fat cheeks did confute his false tongue in that expression." In this book he shows that the authority of the Bishop of Rome can easily be disproved from Holy Scripture, that it receives no support from the judgment of history and antiquity, that the early bishops of that see had no precedence over other bishops, nor were in the least able to control those of other countries. He declares that the inequality in power amongst the Apostles is a human invention, not founded on the Gospels; that in the Holy Eucharist the priest does not offer the sacrifice of Christ, but only the commemoration of that sacrifice; that the Church has no coercive power, that John Huss was wrongfully condemned at the Council of Constance; that the Holy Spirit was promised to the whole Church, and not only to bishops and priests; that the papacy is a fiction invented by men; and he states many other propositions which must have been somewhat distasteful to the Pope and his followers.

James rewarded De Dominis by conferring on him the Mastership of the Savoy and the Deanery of Windsor, and he further increased his wealth by presenting himself to the rich living of West Ilsley, in Berkshire.

In an unfortunate moment he insulted Count Gondomar, the Spanish Amba.s.sador, who determined to be revenged, and persuaded the Pope to send the most flattering offers if he would return to his former faith.

Pope Gregory XV., a relative of De Dominis, had just ascended the Papal throne. The bait took. De Dominis, discontented with the _non multum supra quadringentas libras annuas_ which he received in England, and pining after the _duodecim millia Coronatorum_ promised by the Pope, resolved to leave our sh.o.r.es. James was indignant. Bishop Hall tried to dissuade him from his purpose. "Tell me, by the Immortal G.o.d, what it is that can s.n.a.t.c.h you from us so suddenly, after a delay of so many years, and drive you to Rome? Has our race appeared to you inhospitable, or have we shown favour to your virtues less than you hoped? You cannot plead that this is the cause of your departure, upon whom a most kind sovereign has bestowed such ample gifts and conferred such rich offices." The Archbishop was questioned by the Bishops of London and Durham, by order of the king, with regard to his intentions, and commanded to leave the country within twenty days. He was known to have ama.s.sed a large sum of money during his sojourn in England, and his trunks were seized, and found to contain over 1,600. De Dominis fled to Brussels, and there wrote his _Consilium Reditus_, giving his reasons for rejoining the Roman Church, and expecting daily his promised reward--a cardinal's hat and a rich bishopric. His hopes were doomed to be disappointed. For a short time he received a pension from Gregory XV., but this was discontinued by Urban VIII., and our author became dissatisfied and imprudently talked of again changing his faith. He was heard to exclaim at supper on one occasion, "That no Catholic had answered his book, _De Republica Ecclesiastica_, but that he himself was able to deal with them." The Inquisition seized him, and he was conveyed to the Castle of St. Angelo, where he soon died, as some writers a.s.sert, by poison. His body and his books were burned by the executioner, and the ashes thrown into the Tiber. Dr. Fitzgerald, Rector of the English College at Rome, thus describes him: "He was a malcontent knave when he fled from us, a railing knave when he lived with you, and a motley particoloured knave now he is come again." He had undoubtedly great learning and skill in controversy, [Footnote: His opinion with regard to the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan over suffragan bishops was referred to in the recent trial of the Bishop of Lincoln.] but avarice was his master, and he was rewarded according to his deserts. [Footnote: Cf. article by the Rev. C. W. Penny in the _Journal of the Berks Archaeological Society_, on Antonio de Dominis.]

The lonely fortress of Mont-Saint-Michel saw the end of a bitter controversialist, Noel Bede, who died there in 1587. He wrote _Natalis Bedoe, doctoris Theol. Parisiensis annotationum in Erasmi paraphrases Novi Testamenti, et Jacobi Fabri Stapulensis commentarios in Evangelistas, Paulique Epistolas, Libri III., Parisiis_, 1526, _in-fol_.

This work abounds in vehement criticisms and violent declamations.

Erasmus did not fail to reply to his calumniator, and detected no less than eighty-one falsehoods, two hundred and six calumnies, and forty-seven blasphemies. Bede continued to denounce Erasmus as a heretic, and in a sermon before the court reproached the king for not punishing such unbelievers with sufficient rigour. The author was twice banished, and finally was compelled to make a public retractation in the Church of Notre Dame, for having spoken against the king and the truth, and to be exiled to Mont-Saint-Michel.

Translators of the Bible fared not well at the hands of those who were unwilling that the Scriptures should be studied in the vulgar tongue by the lay-folk, and foremost among that brave band of self-sacrificing scholars stands William Tyndale. His life is well known, and needs no recapitulation; but it may be noted that his books, rather than his work of translating the Scriptures, brought about his destruction.

His important work called _The Practice of Prelates_, which was mainly directed against the corruptions of the hierarchy, unfortunately contained a vehement condemnation of the divorce of Catherine of Arragon by Henry VIII. This deeply offended the monarch at the very time that negotiations were in progress for the return of Tyndale to his native sh.o.r.es from Antwerp, and he declared that he was "very joyous to have his realm dest.i.tute of such a person." The _Practice of Prelates_ was partly written in answer to the _Dialogue_ of Sir Thomas More, who was commissioned to combat the "pernicious and heretical" works of the "impious enemies of the Church." Tyndale wrote also a bitter _Answer_ to the _Dialogue_, and this drew forth from More his abusive and scurrilous _Confutation_, which did little credit to the writer or to the cause for which he contended Tyndale's longest controversial work, ent.i.tled _The Obedience of a Christian Man, and how Christian Rulers ought to govern_, although it stirred up much hostility against its author, very favourably impressed King Henry, who delighted in it, and declared that "the book was for him and for all kings to read." The story of the burning of the translation of the New Testament at St. Paul's Cross by Bishop Tunstall, of the same bishop's purchase of a "heap of the books"

for the same charitable purpose, thereby furnishing Tyndale with means for providing another edition and for printing his translation of the Pentateuch, all this is a thrice-told tale. Nor need we record the account of the conspiracy which sealed his doom. For sixteen months he was imprisoned in the Castle of Vilvoord, and we find him pet.i.tioning for some warm clothing and "for a candle in the evening, for it is wearisome to sit alone in the dark," and above all for his Hebrew Bible, Grammar, and Dictionary, that he might spend his time in that study.